Page 77 of Degradation (The Brethren Lords #3)

Pailtyn

I come to with a start.

The air is sterile, cold, and the silence is deafening. I try to lift my head, but it feels like it’s filled with cotton wool. Feels like it’s rammed to the very brim.

Where is the darkness? Where is my friend?

My thoughts are sluggish, but there’s a clarity underlying the haze, a clarity I haven’t felt in... I can’t remember how long.

I try to sit up, and a wave of nausea hits me like a truck, preventing any further movement. I retch, but nothing comes up. My stomach is empty, hollow, in a way that suggests I haven’t eaten in a long, long time.

As my head stops spinning, I realize something’s not right.

I’m not in Oblivion. I’m certain of that fact. But I’m also not in whatever the hell that place was I woken up in before. Where the fuck am I?

I can feel the flimsy gown I’m wearing, the kind you wear in hospitals, draped over me. My arms are stretched out to the sides, secured to some sort of board. I tug, but the restraints hold fast. Panic starts to rise, a cold sweat breaking out on my forehead.

I can hear a far-off drip, the sound of a tap that’s not been turned off properly.

This is not a hospital. Hospitals have machines, beeping sounds, charts at the foot of the bed. This place has none of that. A shiver runs down my spine, and the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

Something is wrong. Something is very very wrong.

The door swings open, and the sound of two figures walking in makes me freeze. They move towards me, their steps echoing ominously in the cold room. I shrink back as they reach for my restraints, but I can’t get away from them. They’ve ensured that by tying me to this damned board.

Before I can react, they undo the straps, grab my arms, and haul me up. My feet drag limply behind me as they pull me out of the room and into what I guess is a corridor. I try to struggle, but my body feels disconnected from my mind, my limbs heavy and unresponsive.

When we finally reach wherever they’re taking me, they push me hard enough that I stumble, falling to the cold floor.

One of them grabs my face, turning it. “Look.” He says, in a voice that is almost certainly distorted by some sort of tech. “See them, see all of us here, ready to witness justice?”

I don’t know what he’s talking about. I can’t see fuck all and they must know that. Clearly, they’re goading me, and yet I feel like an animal in a zoo, a spectacle for their entertainment.

Is this my new punishment?

Is this some new form of torture the Brethren have come up with now that Guthrie is dead?

Well hard luck to them. I’m beyond that shit now, beyond it all. The darkness is my friend. The darkness is my salvation.

A man steps in front of me. His heavy boots announce his presence.

He grabs a fistful of my hair and yanks my head up.

I squint, trying to place that smell, but my brain feels sluggish, like I’m still a little drugged.

There must something in my system, some medicine that’s stopping my brain from working properly.

“Are you ready to confess your sins?” He asks. His voice is harsh, grating. Mechanical, like he too using something to mask it, to alter it.

I manage to find my voice, though it feels stiff, like I haven’t used it in months. “What sins?”

He doesn’t reply, he just takes a step forward and without warning, he slams a fist into my stomach. I double over, gasping for breath.

Pain explodes through my body, and I can feel the bile rising in my throat.

As they stand over me, it’s more than apparent what’s about to happen. Instinct has me curling up, trying to protect myself, but my body won’t cooperate. The first blow lands on my back, sending a shockwave of pain through me.

I scream out, a raw, primal sound that sounds so far removed from that perfect little girl they tried to mould me into so long ago.

“Confess your sins.” One of them shouts.

Sins? What sins do I have? I let out a gurgle, a laugh at the absurdity of this. Are we really back here again, back with this bullshit?

That hard thing comes down again and again, each blow echoing through the room, each impact sending a fresh wave of agony through me.

I can hear the people, I can hear their muffled cheers and jeers. They’re enjoying this. They’re enjoying my pain.

Confess your sins. Confess your sins.

The words echo in my head, becoming a twisted mantra.

But I can’t confess. I don’t know what they want from me. I don’t know what sins they’re talking about.

Do they really think they can break me with this? Do they really think my mind will give in? I laugh more, laugh harder. Do they have any clue who I am, what I’m capable of, what I’ve endured these last god knows how many years.

This is amateur. This is pathetic.

Did they think a few bruises would have me spilling all my secrets?

I’m better than that now, far fucking better. They can hit, and they can beat, and they can break my very bones, but they’ll get nothing from me. Nothing but derision.

Another blow has my back jerking.

Darkness starts to creep in at the edges of my vision. I twist, leaning into it, welcoming it as it numbs the pain, as it takes it all away like the good friend I know it to be.

Oh, these people may think they can beat me, but I know better.

Pain is my ally. Darkness is my friend. I learnt to exist in the places beyond, the slithers of ether between this world and hell itself.